James' Journey to Jerusalem (Massa'ot James Be'eretz Hakodesh), directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, is the tragicomedic story of a Zulu-speaking African named James (played by Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe), who is sent on a pilgrimage by his Zulu-speaking village to Jerusalem; after he reaches the Holy City, he is to return home to become the new Christian pastor for the village. Upon disembarking at Tel Aviv Airport, he is arrested and jailed because the immigration official (played by Yael Levental) suspects that he is looking for work despite arriving on a tourist visa because he naively asks her, "Are you a Hebrew woman from God's chosen people?" Immigration authorities run a racket that consists of releasing those arrested for deportation to employers seeking workers who will put up with substandard conditions in order to make money. When Shimi Shabati (played by Salim Daw) visits the jail, he decides to hire James, pays his bail, and transports him to a lockdown dormitory for Africans run by a Romanian slob. Each day the Africans ride in a truck to various places to perform cleaning work, and then they ride back after work; they are paid on a weekly basis by the Romanian. But James has come as a pilgrim. When he tells Shimi that he must go to Jerusalem, Shimi tells him that he must first pay off his debt, namely, the amount of bail required to spring him from jail. Considering the arrangement reasonable, James goes along and works with diligence; he is allowed to attend church services once each week, though he is absent on some Sabbath days in order to go shopping with one of his coworkers, an experience that opens James's eyes to the material plenty of Israel. Soon, Shimi realizes that the cheerful and cooperative James will be an excellent daytime companion for his elderly father, Salah Shabati (played by Arie Elias), who lives alone in a ramshackle home flanked by highrise apartments. Salah, who clings to an ancestral home that his son wants to sell to become a millionaire, does not want a mere housecleaner; when he learns that James is a farmer, he asks him to turn the backyard into an oasis of green. Salah also urges James not be a frayer, that is, an individual who is easily taken advantage of. One day, while indulging in his favorite game of solitaire backgammon, Salah asks James to play; 100 shekels is the value of the game. James, however, continually rolls boxcars, so the father breaks off the game before he loses. He then invites his friends to play backgammon; pretending that his arm is injured, Salah has James roll the dice for him, and again boxcars come up. One afternoon, Shimi comes by to collect James so that he can do some housecleaning for his wife. His wife's girlfriend then secretly arranges to have James clean her apartment. Salah, on sensing that James is moonlighting, advises him that the richest people never work; those who think hire others to do the work. Accordingly, James arranges moonlighting jobs for his coworkers, skimming profit from their wages. When James returns to church to make a large donation, the pastor (David Nabegamabo) compliments James in front of the congregation, informing them that they should feel free to call James if they want to do some additional work. Now James, cellphone in hand, is a major employment agency accumulating more than enough shekels to buy a small television set. When he brings the set back to his dorm for the enjoyment of his coworkers, the Romanian gets angry, smashes the set, and a miniriot ensues; when Shimi returns, he arranges the deportation of the Romanian and has the trustworthy James manage the dorm as well as the weekly payments to the workers, while taking his cut. James is now profiteering, having learned from all the others who have exploited him, including the Tel Aviv pastor. Ultimately, when he becomes tired of making money under humiliating conditions in Tel Aviv, he realizes that he still has not been to Jerusalem. How he gets there is where the comedy ends and more tragedy awaits. Israel's dog-eat-dog society, which has ditched the idealism of the communitarian past, is thus laid bare in James' Journey to Jerusalem, which has exploited the allegorical tale about James to critique Israel's' dysfunctional and hypocritical materialism. MH
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